“You can make a difference three times a day by what you choose to eat.” I’m not sure if she said it first, but I’ll credit this quote to Leanne M who led the King’s College Office of Volunteer Services when I was a student there. She said it a lot, and with good reason: eating a plant-based diet (ie vegetarian and vegan meals) is one of the biggest ways you can personally have an impact on the environment.
But Chris, this isn’t an environmental blog! No, but everything we do has to do with and has an effect on the environment. Traveling plays a big role in that. Now more than ever, we are experiencing extreme weather, including flooding and wildfires, at a higher frequency. This is awful for the people whose lives and homes it destroys. I don’t want to downplay that, but I will get to how this relates to traveling and Chris Crossing Germany.
Table of Contents
Climate change is happening…
We are destroying the beauty of this world from the ice in Antarctica to the Amazon Rainforest to the Great Barrier Reef. If we keep going, soon there won’t be much left of this world to see. Last summer, Australia was covered in smoke so thick you couldn’t breathe. The western US and Canada are experiencing long heatwaves over far over 100F. Flooding in Germany has killed dozens of people this year.
…and it affects everything, even (outdoor!) travel.
Extreme weather makes traveling more challenging. Last summer on the Danube Bike Trail, I pushed my bike through (luckily only) knee high water at several spots along the way. Some flooding on a river is normal, but now such events happen at a higher frequency and a higher severity. With the weather fluctuating more quickly, we have stronger and more violent winds, making cycling through headwind an agonizing nightmare, not to mention dangerous due to falling tree branches and other debris.
If I have to convince you that we need to make changes and fast, then it’s seriously time to wake up. A recent trip the US shocked me with how little the average person seems to do to reduce their impact on the planet. I’m not sure if this was due to being out of my typical circle (do I have such hippie rock climber, scientist friends?) or to cultural differences (Germans are champs at separating their trash). So I’m writing this post with the hope that even just one person changes their behavior. I’m not asking you all to become vegans or vegetarians, but I am saying that everyone needs to eat less meat.
Remember: you can make a difference three times a day by what you choose to eat.
More about bike trips, like the worst one ever
Reasons for Eating a Plant-Based Diet
The point of this post is to help you eat less meat, mostly for environmental reasons. That’s also why I became a vegetarian more than ten years ago. But there are lots of reasons to go plant-based. Whether you make the choice because of one of them or a combination doesn’t matter, the benefits are the same. So choose to eat plant-based!
Environmental Reasons
Eating meat and other animal products has a huge impact on our environment. More than 30% of the world’s land surface is dedicated to agriculture (Project Drawdown). A meat-based diet requires 3 acres of land per person per year (this includes growing food to raise the meat). A vegetarian diet would need one third of an acre and a vegan diet just one sixth (Cowspiracy). These are just a few of the infinite facts about the environment which give us reason to eat plant-based. For me, the environment was the main reason I chose to do so.
Heath Reasons
Others choose to eat a plant-based diet for health reasons, including C. When done correctly, a vegetarian’s or vegan’s diet is typically more varied than a meat-eater’s. This allows you to intake a wider variety of vitamins and minerals and eat more foods which work well in combination with one another. C and I now have fennel and millet as a regular part of our routine, we know what to do with tamarind paste and tahini, and we’re familiar with a whole range of new spices. There are a myriad of health benefits to eating less meat – discuss it with your doctor or nutritionist!
Animal Rights Reasons
Often to produce “affordable” (cheap) meat, animals are raised in tight, cruel conditions and slaughtered in inhumane ways. Fishing produces by-catch in which innumerous extraneous sea creatures are killed in catching the targeted fish. Again, only two examples among a sea of facts. I find people typically choose veganism for this reason, like my friend Liz.
No matter which way you spin it, if you eat plant-based meals you will be healthier, more ethical, and (most important!) more environmentally friendly!
Resources
If you need to be convinced, there are plenty of resources out there. Project Drawdown has an excellent website outlining numerous solutions to the climate crisis. Films I have enjoyed about the meat and fish industry include Food Inc., Cowspiracy, and Seaspiracy. The Omnivore’s Dilemma is an insightful read by environmental food writer Michael Pollan, who champions “Eat food. Mostly plants.” These are just a few of the resources that have had the biggest impact on me.
How to Eat a Plant-Based Diet
You want to eat a plant-based diet? Fantastic! Here’s a few tips about how I got started. I hope they help you too!
Make a Commitment
Most New Year’s Resolutions are out the door before the first week is over. To really make a change, you need to set a measureable goal and stick with it. You cannot retroactively say, “Well, I don’t think I ate any meat Tuesday this week, so I think I’m doing a good job.” Make a plan and commit to it!
No Meat Monday’s
No Meat Monday has been a thing for a long time. It is one campaign in a string of campaigns to help Americans make healthier decisions at the start of each week, though meatless Mondays or meatless day campaigns have been common throughout the world over the last century or more.
Personally, I got started with no meat on Monday’s, Wednesday’s, and Friday’s. This way, I still held myself accountable to not eat meat nearly half the week, while at the same time not getting overwhelmed with having to do it every day. Learning something new all the time can be exhausting. This allowed me to slowly get into vegetarianism and change my habits without going “cold turkey.” Eventually I became used to vegetarian meals and only occasionally ate meat. After several years, I was no longer interested in eating meat.
That’s just my own vegetarianism journey. It’s OK to still love meat and to eat it sparingly. The important thing is to consciously eat more plants!
Vegan for Breakfast and Lunch
Another option I recently read about was being vegan at breakfast and lunch time, and maintaining an omnivore appetite at dinner (We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer). This would be a very easy way to get into a plant-based diet, though I would argue that over time, dinner should become increasingly plant-based.
Eat food. Mostly plants.
A vegetarian or vegan diet doesn’t necessarily equal a healthy one. Ben and Jerry’s make several tantalizing vegan flavors, but eating vegan ice cream three meals a day is not the direction you want to go, as delicious as that sounds. When Pollan writes “Eat food. Mostly plants,” he refers to getting as close to the real thing as possible. The more foods you eat with less processing and fewer (chemical) ingredients the better. Again, talk to your doctor or dietician about making this change. A few of the cookbook suggestions below are authored by doctors and licensed dieticians. Done well, the plant-based diet is extremely varied, which allows you to get a wider range of nutrition from your food 🙂
But I’m So Hungry without Meat
This is a big complaint from reluctant meat-eaters: that vegetarian food just isn’t as filling. The difference in diet won’t give you the same feeling in your belly, but there are some plant-based ingredients which might help give you that satiated sensation. Look for protein rich foods like:
- legumes: beans, chickpeas, lentils
- grains: quinoa, spelt, millet, amaranth, oats
- soy/wheat: tofu, seitan, tempeh, edamame, oats, soy milk
- nuts: nuts, nut butters, and seeds
Start with What You Know
There are already a lot of things you eat which are vegan/vegetarian. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you begin to eat plant-based meals. And some things only require a simple twist to become vegan or vegetarian. Here are a list of easy things to go for when looking for the familiar while doing something new:
Breakfast
- oatmeal (made with hot water or plant-based milk)
- cereal (with plant-based milk)
- toast with plant-based spreads
Lunch
- peanut butter and jelly sandwich
- salad
- macaroni salad
- sandwich with veggies and/or vegan spreads
- hummus and veggies
Dinner
- spaghetti and tomato sauce (with vegan parmesan)
- pizza with veggie toppings
- soup (so many veggie and vegan options here!)
So Close, You Won’t Know What You’re Missing
Years ago, there weren’t many vegan substitute options for meat products on the market. But today there are tons of plant-based options designed to taste, feel, and smell like real meat. In the burger department there is the Impossible Burger, Awesome Burger, and Beyond Burger to name a few. Since I prefer that my food doesn’t taste like meat, I am not very familiar with these products. But I do know that there are more coming out all the time. Any supermarket is likely to have at least some variety.
An alternative to purchasing pre-made vegan-meat products (is that an oxy-moron?) and keeping with Michael Pollan’s, “Eat food. Mostly plants,” is to make your own meat substitute products. You can have tacos out of tofu, turn cauliflower into barbeque chicken nuggets, try vegan mozzarella sticks, or make calamari from mushrooms. The internet is full of recipes for “vegan [insert meat product].”
Meat Surprises
“Meat surprises” started as a thing that happened to me in Spain, when I would sometimes receive a meal with ham in it after stating that I don’t eat meat (this is because the Spanish word carne doesn’t encompass all meat). Although this still sometimes happens to me, in this section I intend to talk about products where you might be surprised to find a meat-connection. Depending on how seriously you intend to take your new plant-based lifestyle, this may or may not be of importance to you.
Gummy Bears
I love gummy bears. They’re my favorite treat on long bike trips. But did you know they’re made with gelatin which comes from pigs? Never fear! There are now lots of vegetarian and vegan gummy options, my favorite being Katja’s and Lach Gummi. Even Haribo has some veggie gummies. Often, the difference between vegetarian gummy bears and the vegan ones is beeswax.
Cheese
Cheese is surely vegetarian, right? Nope. Not all cheeses are the same, I’m afraid. Many kinds of cheese, like Parmesan, are not vegetarian because they include an animal enzyme called rennet. This processing ingredient isn’t usually labeled on cheese, so you may not even know it’s in there. Cheeses labeled vegetarian will use a plant-based version of the enzyme if it is needed.
Mayonnaise
I never really knew what was in there. Turns out mayonnaise is made with egg yolk (and somehow isn’t yellow), which makes it not vegan. But it’s fine for vegetarians. There are several brands out there which make a vegan version, include Hellman’s.
That’s Vegan!?
Surprise, surprise, some of your favorite snacks are already vegan! These don’t really stick to “Eat Food. Mostly Plants,” but we all need to indulge sometimes or have a taste of something familiar.
Candies: Oreos, Swedish Fish, Air Heads, Twizzlers, Fruit by the Foot, Cracker Jacks, Back to Nature Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Sour Patch Kids
Chips: Fritos, Doritos Spicy Sweet Chili, Kettle Brand Potato Chips, SunChips, Lays Potato Chips, Stacy’s Pita Chips
Crackers: Ritz, Wheat Thins, Keebler Club Crackers, Triscuits,
Other: Pillsbury Crescents (how!?), Duncan Hines Whipped Frosting, SuperPretzel Soft Pretzels, Nature Valley Granola Bars
(Thanks to BuzzFeed!)
Favorite Cookbooks
There are so many cookbooks out there that the choice is overwhelming. Some books are better for beginners than others. Below are the cookbooks I have and love, as well as some recommended from my social media community. (Order or pick up these books at your local bookstore!)
Betty Crocker’s Easy Everyday Vegetarian
This was my very first vegetarian cookbook, and it saved me from starving. I think it’s real great for people just starting out with vegetarianism and possibly also just learning to cook (like I was, fresh out of college). The recipes are simple and contain ingredients you are already familiar with. The book is divided into chapters like grains, risotto and pasta or gratins, casseroles and pot pies. My favorite recipe out of this book is the easy Italian skillet supper. Each recipe has the amount of time required, servings, and nutritional information. I like that there is a tip at the top of each recipe. What I don’t love is that there is a tip at the bottom of each recipe to make the dish meaty. But maybe it makes it easier for you to go veggie – first try the dish with meat, and then without!
More beginner vegetarian cookbooks here.
A Modern Way to Cook by Anna Jones
Get this book if you’re ready to up your game. Some of the recipes contain an overwhelming number of new ingredients and others are simpler, with just one or two ingredients that may be new for you. What I love about this book is that the chapters are divided up based on time: in the time it takes to set the table, ready in twenty, forty-minute feasts, etc. The book is full of vegetarian recipes, but the index has extra pages to list which ones are gluten-free or vegan. There are so many recipes in this book that I love, but my two favorites are the very simple kale, tomato, and lemon magic one-pot spaghetti and smoky root vegetable tacos with green chili salsa.
We also have The Modern Cook’s Year, which organizes dishes around the vegetables which are in season – a way to get even deeper into more sustainable food habits and further reduce your carbon footprint. Jones recently came out with One, which appeals to me a lot, since all the dishes are made in just one pot!
Flavour by Ottolenghi
This cookbook is for those ready to become Michelin Star chefs in their own kitchens. The techniques are still for at-home cooks, but take the outcomes up several notches. The book is organized by processes (roasting, braining, infusing, ripening), partners (sweet, fat, sour, spicy), and products (mushrooms, onions and garlic, nuts and seeds, and sugar). If you’re interested in the science behind cooking, then this book is for you. There’s lots of explanations about the how’s and why’s going on in the cooking process. We haven’t cooked enough out of it yet for me to pick a favorite recipe, but lots of people are swooning over Ottolenghi and his other vegetable cookbooks.
Community Recommendations
Thanks so much to all my Facebook friends who enthusiastically offered up their favorite plant-based books and blogs!! I’m looking forward to checking these out.
Books
- 15 Minute Vegan – by Katy Bescow. Fast, affordable vegan food
- Six Seasons – by Joseph McFadden. He arranges produce by season and breaks down multiple ways to cook each vegetable
- How to Cook Everything Vegetarian – by Mark Bittman. It is a bit of a reference book – it’s very comprehensive
- The Bold Vegetarian – by Bharti Kirchner. International dishes plant-based-style
- Green Roasting Tin – by Rukmini Iyer. One pot meals is my kind of clean up! Also wrote Vegetarian Dinners in the Oven. Super easy and yummy. More one pot meals!
- The How Not to Die Cookbook – by Dr. Michael Gregor. Healthy, vegan recipes
- Thug Kitchen – now called “Bad Manners,” these cookbooks are spiced up with foul language, making time in the kitchen a bit more hilarious
- Moosewood Restaurant – restaurant and cookbooks!
Blogs and Websites
- Pick Up Limes – blog and YouTube channel by a registered dietician
- It doesn’t Taste Like Chicken – vegan blog
- Love and Lemons – vegan food blog
More
- Forks Over Knives – film, cookbook series, blog, app, and print magazine purporting one of my beliefs about vegetarian food: that you don’t need a knife!
- The Happy Pear – online courses, cook books, and other products
- Happy Cow App – find vegan and veg restaurants in over 180 countries
- Deliciously Ella – cookbooks, podcast, products and recipes
German Recommendations
- Ela Vegan – vegan blog
- Umessen: Das Kochbuch für eine bessere Welt – cookbook
Instagram Accounts:
- @fitgreenmind – a teenager from Saarland, Germany with over 880K followers shares easy vegan recipes in English and German (also on the web)
- @vegandrea – vegan tips
If you’re still reading, thanks for making it this far! I hope you find eating fewer animal products to be as imperative as I do. You can make a difference three times a day by what you choose to eat!
Do you have more plant-based cookbook/blog recommendations? Tips for anyone starting out? Questions about going plant-based? I’d love to read your comments!